Bucketlist Blazer -Restomod build 6.6liter L8T

[Richard]

If it rubs at full bump it will still rub at full bump, even if you raise the suspension ride height. Maybe will not hit full bump as much, but will still rub. Bump stops need to be lowered to eliminate rubbing if present.

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by NDM

So, I am far enough along in shakedown phase that I can share a few things.



It needs to come up in the front. I can hear rubbing and it looks low in front. This is likely due to the heavy iron block. No big deal. I just have to figure out what springs are in it and order a 1 inch up.

No real diff vs a iron sbc (~200#). I'd look into the front spring rate & verify the shocks are in good working order.
Glad things are working out.

[NDM]

Originally Posted by Richard

If it rubs at full bump it will still rub at full bump, even if you raise the suspension ride height. Maybe will not hit full bump as much, but will still rub. Bump stops need to be lowered to eliminate rubbing if present.

Once I figure out which cpp spring is in there I will order 1 inch less drop.

[NDM]

Today was fantastic!

It started with the same old worry. I was worried that the torque converter was faulty. I went on a drive and warmed the trans up past 165 where learning takes place. It was better but I decided to take it to this trans shop to look it over. The guy tells me to come in after lunch and he will look at it. Miraculously, on my drive home, it was damn near as good as it was before I took everything apart. Im like, what the!??!

I go back at 1pm and the trans is feeling like a whole new trans. The shop looked it over and realized that I was about 4 qt low. I should have checked it again after filling it twice. Now, it shifts great and feels 100%. He says the stalling issue is a tune issue.

So, it is time for me to take it to a pro tuner. I have gone as far as I can as a hobbiest tuner. I am ready to know what this thing can do.

I did have to redo the torque on my mufflers. They got out of alignment. Now it is looking good again. It was nice to be able to enjoy driving it again.

I found one rubbing issue. It was the mud flaps scraping the ground. I raised them 1 inch and the noise is gone. I like them. They are kind of a quirky part of its 4x4 past life.

Plus!!! I got a huge compliment from my neighbor on how I transformed it. He has hotrod features in hotrod magazine. From a guy with his skills, it is a real big compliment.

[NDM]

Holy absolute crapolli!! I found something new tonight......



I got up the nerve to try to do a burnout. I was in a grocery store lot and I pressed the brake and gave it throttle but it would only go to 1000 RPM. Hmm, that sucks. I go home and hit the web and low and behold I find that I need to clip the brake switch wire.



I go back out into the streets to a back road and pull up to a stop sign. Gave it brakes and gas........Dear Lord. This thing can do burnouts with barely any effort. I mean slow speed or high revving burnouts. There is two beautiful black patches in the road and the pungent essence of burned rubber. I am in heaven. No more wheel hop and I do not have to smash the gas to light em up.



Videos to follow soon!

[SCOTI]

Congrats on the victory! A tune from a knowledgeable source will/should only make things better from here.

[NDM]

Originally Posted by SCOTI

Congrats on the victory! A tune from a knowledgeable source will/should only make things better from here.

Dyno tune and alignment is scheduled for thursday!

[NDM]

Finally some audio stuff. I am beginning to think about how I am going to revamp the audio and decided to finally take the plunge on Helix Dsp ultra DSP PC-Tool Version 6.02.01. I took a video of my old setup and switched the software over. I am happy with it so far although I do not really like the new layout. It went well though and I will soon be back doing actual car audio stuff. I have a roll of MLV in the basement and I will sacrifice some weight to try to quiet down the panels a bit. I may just make a huge floor "rug" out of the carpet that is in it but attached to CCF and mlv. No reason that I cannot have a fast vehicle that is as quiet as I can make it.



Anyways I am glad that the upgraded software went well. I still have to change my eq settings back to how they were but I will do that later.



In prep for the tune, I picked up 10 gallons of VP C85 fuel to drop off at the tuner. Hopefully everything goes well. I also ordered up double adjustable QA1 shocks for the front. Part number TD403. The ones on the truck are clapped out. The rears will be replaced with QA1 TD513 shocks if I do not change my mind to coil overs. I purposely did not order the rear due to this indecision.



I have already begun the design for my C notch. I will have to fab my own because A. the 4x4 frame that I have does not have the bump out above the coil that the 2wd frames have. The good news it that the 4x4 frame is flat so that makes the notch design simple. I will get it cut out and installed soon enough.

[NDM]

I will be a nervous wreck until I get my Blazer back from the tuner. I dropped it off this afternoon and I....................



Dead serious, I just lost the ability to express how it would feel if it blows up on the dyno. I do not think I will have words that would make me feel better.



Please wish me luck.

[NDM]

Good news... I heard it on the dyno. It is not blown up so far.

Moderate news-I did not realize that it could take more than a day to tune. I forgot about the street tuning part.

Bad news-My heart could fail from anticipation before they call me to tell me it is done.

It feels like the moments from the time I was told that I knocked up my then girlfriend and when I had to tell my mom. It will probably work out fine but my chest is tight with anticipation. 27 years later and it still feels bad.

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by NDM

Good news... I heard it on the dyno. It is not blown up so far.

Moderate news-I did not realize that it could take more than a day to tune. I forgot about the street tuning part.

Bad news-My heart could fail from anticipation before they call me to tell me it is done.

It feels like the moments from the time I was told that I knocked up my then girlfriend and when I had to tell my mom. It will probably work out fine but my chest is tight with anticipation. 27 years later and it still feels bad.

LoL.... That recollection certainly paints a picture!

[NDM]

So I asked for a conservative tune. It is a daily driver. Where I sit is below what I was expecting but not terrible.
I am at 429.91 wheel hp and 419.98 torque. With the drivetrain losses at about 20%, That puts me at about 536.25 crank.

Now, I do not have long tube headers, I have big ole mufflers on it and I am a novice builder so I know that I can squeeze more out of this old truck motor. For now, I am happy that it will be safe and it puts up pretty decent power.

Now, yes, I will be working to get that number up higher but it is good for me. If I made some small changes and put direct injection back in I could be over 600hp. We discussed that I could skip the DI and rather spend my $$$ on a whipple supercharger and really make it spicy.

For now, I sit about 90hp away from my goal of trackhawk power to weight ratio. I can live with that until summer. I will be yanking as much weight out of this thing as I possibly can to get there!!! :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: 😂With the top off, I would drastically reduce the weight so maybe a soft top is in the near future. The top is like 250 pounds. Maybe I drop one sub out of the equation. That would be like 100 pounds right there between the amp, sub and enclosure weight. My rear seats are removable too and they are wayyyyy heavier than the factory seat.

I am so relieved that it did not grenade though.

One thing is for sure, it feels so much faster just based off of the trans tune. What a huge difference. Money well spent so far. My tuner likes 6l80/90's and has tuner a boatload of them.

[NDM]

Okay...I clearly was not thinking. Tell me why I thought that it I would be fine driving this thing during the winter with its "all season tires"? Am I really that stupid? Yes.....but I do learn though.



Yesterday I told my wife that I needed to test how it would do in the snow that we had and it was not so bad when I started. That changed rapidly as more snow fell. By 6pm I was on my block and so thankful that I actually made it. I had become stuck in an Oreillys parking lot as well as sliding sideways in a fast food drive through. I made on to my block but that was the beginning.



There was a snow plow coming so I had to stop in front of my house to let them by. I realized I was stuck. I almost hit my neighbors mailbox. Somehow I got out. I am now in my driveway and I am stuck. I had to get out and shovel the minor snow and eventually I got it into the garage. WOW! what a pain in the ass.



So here I sit 12 hours later with a receipt for 4- 17 inch wheels and 4 of the best Michelin X ice and snow tires that they sell. On Thursday they come in and I will pick them up from the tire shop so that I can see if it makes things better.



I am going from 245/40-20 and 305/30-22's to 235/60-17's all around with steel wheels for the winter. I sincerely hope that this makes this thing good enough to drive in the winter.



I HATE WINTER

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by NDM

Okay...I clearly was not thinking. Tell me why I thought that it I would be fine driving this thing during the winter with its "all season tires"? Am I really that stupid? Yes.....but I do learn though.



Yesterday I told my wife that I needed to test how it would do in the snow that we had and it was not so bad when I started. That changed rapidly as more snow fell. By 6pm I was on my block and so thankful that I actually made it. I had become stuck in an Oreillys parking lot as well as sliding sideways in a fast food drive through. I made on to my block but that was the beginning.



There was a snow plow coming so I had to stop in front of my house to let them by. I realized I was stuck. I almost hit my neighbors mailbox. Somehow I got out. I am now in my driveway and I am stuck. I had to get out and shovel the minor snow and eventually I got it into the garage. WOW! what a pain in the ass.



So here I sit 12 hours later with a receipt for 4- 17 inch wheels and 4 of the best Michelin X ice and snow tires that they sell. On Thursday they come in and I will pick them up from the tire shop so that I can see if it makes things better.



I am going from 245/40-20 and 305/30-22's to 235/60-17's all around with steel wheels for the winter. I sincerely hope that this makes this thing good enough to drive in the winter.



I HATE WINTER

Winters where you live are much different vs where I do so I feel for you there. No freaking way I would live anywhere roads are salted on the regular (*we do get a brine mix sometimes but it's not a common annual thing).

[NDM]

Originally Posted by SCOTI

Winters where you live are much different vs where I do so I feel for you there. No freaking way I would live anywhere roads are salted on the regular (*we do get a brine mix sometimes but it's not a common annual thing).

I get it. This is and was a planned thing and here is my logic.
I can buy basically every part of this Blazer easier than I can buy parts for a regular car. I am tired of modern car prices. Cost goes up and quality goes down. I lose value every day on a car that falls apart rapidly with new cars. These old vehicles hold better value and do not degrade quite so quickly.

So I would rather daily drive an old truck and over time buy a panel here and a fender there vs paying over 70 grand for something boring that wont make it 20 years. I will be randomly purchasing replacement panels for my Blazer and storing them for a rebuild in about 5 years. These things are like legos in many ways. They are not that complex to take apart and put back together. I do my own work so I am not paying a builders premium. A I rebuild it, I will use high longevity materials. The floors will be epoxy primed, painted and raptorlined.

Basically I figure that I will spend about $15,000 over the next 5 years to use it while I get to enjoy it. When I am done, I bet it will last another 40 years. Any modern parts like the fancy stereo stuff and the motor and trans will be getting changed anyways because I am a hotrodder after all.

In the end, In 5 years I will probably have it rebuilt and have moved on to another restomod as my daily driver. My 76 Buick Regal 6.0 swap was a $4000 car that I put $12000 into it and daily drove it for 4 years until my 6l90 started slipping this fall. It will sit idle until summer when I gut the trans and rebuild it to get it back on the road. The trans had 120,000 miles when I swapped it 5 years ago. Not a bad run. It is well over 200k now. I spent about $16k total since I bought it in 2017. Yes, it looks like a rust bucket but It hides pure fun and race inspired secrets.

Monetarily I am saving money. I do understand why people cringe when they see me drriving such a gem of a Blazer in the winter though. I am thrilled to be blessed enough to do it though.

[NDM]

Ah...winter mode. Much better.

[NDM]

Today (technically yesterday) I spent a few hours doing my own alignment. It was my first time but I had gotten turned down by a couple shops due to the age and that it is modified.I used specs that QA1 reccomends for their kits. The biggest difference came from getting the toe in to .2° toe in. I had to break out my math skills to get the correct specs in inches. One thing that I did realize is that my axle is a quarter inch closer to the drivers side. I will have to correct that when I redo the rear links.

My alignment was way off in the toe specs. It was toe out like crazy. It was also way different from side to side. I wondered why it was so twitchy. Not any more though. I took a drive and it is wayyyyg better. I need to remove a shim from the drivers side to add negative camber but it is well within the specs. Doing the shim removal would satisfy my OCD though. It is a third of a degree off. Specs say plus or minus 1/2 degree.

I used the string method. Not a hard job but definitely requires math to translate all the degrees to fractions of an inch.

[SCOTI]

NEG .5 Camber should be your minimum target on a lowered street driven truck.
Dial in as much Caster as possible @ that -.5 Camber target.

[NDM]

Originally Posted by SCOTI

NEG .5 Camber should be your minimum target on a lowered street driven truck.
Dial in as much Caster as possible @ that -.5 Camber target.

I will revisit it this weekend.

[NDM]

I sometimes forget what a difference great gear makes over good gear. Tonight I installed the shock part of what will be my dual adjustable QA1 coilovers in the rear. I did it because the old shocks were not clapped out but were not controlling the rear end enough. I do not have a C notch and I was bottoming out every now and then.

Fortunately for me, it made a massive difference. Not only am I not whacking the frame anymore, I also have major improvements in body sway and the ride is fantastic! It actually feels faster and smoother at the same time. This was after only a 15 min setup ride.

Tomorrow after work I will try to get it dialed in even better.

Later this year I will convert the rear to full coilover using the shocks that I bought. That should be even better.

For those interested, the part number is QA1 DD511 shocks.the coil for them is 12HT450 for a daily driver and 12HT500 for more track oriented. I am going to buy both sets of springs since they are cheap enough at about $78 a pop. For black springs add a B to the part number.

[NDM]

I finally did something about the fuel pumps. When I installed them, I put them too high so I could not reach the bottom of the tank. It would be a pain to drop the tank in the event of a dead fuel pump. So...

I cut an access hole that will be covered by the carpet. Now I can just remove some screws to access the pumps.

I opened the tank and dropped them to about 13.5 inches. I will have to test this by purposely running out of fuel to see the actual capacity. Hopefully I can hit empty on the gauge when it is actually empty.

[SCOTI]

LMC & other vendors sell steel floor patch pieces for a tighter 'cover/access panel' seal....
https://www.lmctruck.com/body-compon...d-patch-panels

[NDM]

Originally Posted by SCOTI

LMC & other vendors sell steel floor patch pieces for a tighter 'cover/access panel' seal....
https://www.lmctruck.com/body-compon...d-patch-panels

I was going to flange the floor with a small lip under the cut metal an use the piece that I cut out bu honestly, I am not worried about it. It will be under the carpet and deadener layers that I have planned.

[NDM]

Intentional overreaction.



So I got tired of the drone from my exhaust. I also wanted the ability to actually hear my music while in motion. So I bought some big ole dynomax super turbo mufflers and spent a few days figuring out how to fit them.

https://www.dynomax.com/super-turbo-...set-18006.html



The result is a slightly chambered sound that is very much more quiet and has zero drone. Do I like it????? Sort of. I will definitely be looking to go back to straight throughv exhausts in the future. I would not be surprised if I lost 30hp with these. I really love magnaflow and will figure out a way to run 2 straight through mufflers per side. I want magnaflow sound but more quiet.



For now, I am going to keep these big cans on and enjoy a little quiet until it gets warm again.

[NDM]

Here I go again. I done spent another $650 on mufflers. I am going to go with Vibrant 1107 street power mufflers and Vibrant 1142 ultra quiet resonators where my current flex couplers are. The resonators are to kill any drone before it starts and the muffler will quiet it down even further. When I did the calculation, the magnaflow 4x9x18 mufflers look larger but the 5x9x15 vibrant has more volume. This will save space and will be more quiet. While I would rather keep the flex couplers, unfortunately I just do not have enough space. My Regal does not have a flex coupler and it seems just fine. If I have issues, I guess I will have to revisit the matter.



I did a test. I put my old magnaflow on the table with an spl meter on one end and pink noise in the other and got 73db. I did the exact same thing with the vibrant muffler and got 68db. Definitely expecting the new muffler to be more quiet while on the vehicle. With the resonator installed, I think it may just be a little on the too quiet side until they all kind of break in. I am fine with that. No matter what, the straight through design will allow the Blazer to bark when I get on it even if it is less obnoxious. The Vibrant muffler is notably heavier than the magnaflow. Both are stainless steel although the magnaflow is 409 stainless and the Vibrant is 304 Stainless. The Vibrant feels much more tightly packed. They are very good looking shiny mufflers and clearly are very well made. Both mufflers are straight through but the magnaflow has a little S bend inside while the Vibrant is definitely straight through with what looks to be no bend at all.



I am also going to reroute the exhaust for the 5th time to get the mufflers back to the middle of the vehicle again. This should make it easier to get the pipes routed over the axle when I install the C-notch.